Giving girls sporting confidence

You might have seen the adverts on the television, on billboards across the country, or seen it on social media. Or you may have seen women and girls jiggling, wiggling and having fun. This is because at the start of the year, Sport England hit the world’s media with a bold new campaign – This Girl Can – designed to give girls and women the confidence and belief they need to be more active.
    
At present, there are two million fewer women than men regularly playing sport. There are 9.4 million women in England aged between 14-40 years old, and when asked, seven million say that they would like to participate more in sport and physical activity. Sport England’s research found that four million women are currently active at least once a week but want to do more. This means that there are three million who are not currently active.

Why the reluctance?
Throughout the last two decades, much research has been done to identify why so many women and girls appear reluctant to take part in physical activity and sport. Much of this work has focused on the obvious physical barriers, such as cost, time, access and transport.
    
These barriers certainly exist. But Sport England’s groundbreaking research, which underpins This Girl Can, has identified fear of judgement by others as a significant and unifying barrier to girls and women taking part in physical activity and sport. That could be fear of being judged on appearance, ability, or how they’re choosing to spend their time.

The research found factors included getting sweaty, changing in front of others, no equipment/clothing or even the need to wear lycra. Other reasons include the fear of not being fit enough, forgetting the rules, the sport being too competitive, and even male instructors.

Whatever the judgement barrier, This Girl Can wants to tackle it head on.

School involvement
Schools are in an ideal position to help and encourage girls to be physically active and Sport England has invited schools to share the messages and images of This Girl Can with their students to encourage them to engage and interact with the campaign.
    
Since the start of the campaign in January 2015, over 800 schools and colleges have become approved partners of the This Girl Can campaign, downloading posters and artwork from the website to promote activities in schools and PE lessons. This is just the start, however, and we want more schools to get involved so that more students feel that they can too.
    
To support the work of This Girl Can with schools further, Sport England has commissioned the Association for Physical Education (afPE) to develop resources that help secondary school teachers to plan engaging, interactive workshops for their students. Six workshops have been designed that focus on helping young people develop the personal and social skills needed to manage the opportunities and challenges in life, which impact on their own and others’ health and emotional well-being and their involvement in physical activity.
    
With three themes, including ‘Can You?’ ‘How Can I?’ and ‘So Can I’, the resource provides delivery notes and information for teachers, and over 20 innovative and interactive student tasks.

These include downloadable video clips, visual materials, lively debates, opportunities to discuss sensitive concerns and learn strategies to develop personal skills such as, self-esteem, confidence, optimism and empathy. This all benefits their health and emotional well-being. The flexible and interactive tasks can be combined and adapted for use in assemblies, Physical Social Health Education (PSHE) sessions and after-school clubs. Armed with these practical strategies, students can begin to feel empowered to make positive decisions in their lives, and to use this positivity to engage in and commit to physical activity and sport; experiencing for themselves the wealth of benefits it can bring them.

Health behaviour change
For some young people, however, it may not be enough to give them the right information and access to exciting and/or new experiences of physical activity and sport in the hope that this will inspire them to be active now and in the future. Leading healthy active lives involves health behaviour change which is a very complex process.
    
This resource aims to help girls feel that they can access and use physical activity in order to make a difference to their own health and emotional well-being. The workshops help students to understand the social and emotional skills which will empower them and support their journey to becoming more physically active, confident, happy and successful in other aspects of their lives.
    
The campaign shows people that girls and women can relate to, who have similar lives, and face the same internal battles when it comes to exercise. Skyla, a 14 year-old student from Forest Hill is a perfect example. Despite being a self-described ‘girly girl’, Skyla loves the toughness that sport offers. Following the London 2012 Olympic Games she was inspired to take up boxing. She describes the discipline needed for boxing as intense and says it has helped her focus at school.

However she can still box while still being a ‘girly girl’, as shown by the poster she features in which says: ‘Under these gloves is a beautiful manicure’.
    
This Girl Can Case Study – Kelly
Kelly, 31, is a single working mum of three from Bury, near Manchester. Kelly has found a distinct way to fit exercise into her life since she had her third child – by working out at home, with her children.
    
Kelly said: “After I had my third child I just felt sluggish, I didn’t have any energy. I was due to go back to work and didn’t feel good about myself and that gave me the kick-start I needed to find a way to prioritise getting active. I make exercise a family affair. My kids are part of the workout routine – we put on music or a DVD on and just go for it together. It doesn’t feel like a pain to do it because it’s fun, and part of our life, and I really hope it has a positive effect on how my children view exercise as they grow up, so being active won’t feel like a chore, but just something they naturally do.”
    
This Girl Can aims to celebrate the everyday girls and women that take part in sport and are physical active by saying that it really doesn’t matter if you are a bit rubbish or completely brilliant, and the main thing is that you’re doing something.
    
The campaign will continue to use prime time TV advertising, billboards and cinema and shopping centre screens to put images of real girls and women exercising on the national stage and use social media to continue the debate about attitudes to female sport.

The impact of the campaign will show that every girl or woman, no matter what shape, size or ability, can take part in sport and physical activity without worrying about fear of judgement. The overriding message is no matter what, This Girl Can.

Further information
www.thisgirlcan.co.uk